Silverlight Brings Statistics to Life
One of the major innovations in Virtual OneStop/Virtual LMI Version 10.05 is the inclusion of eye-catching, information-rich maps and graphs that display a wide variety of labor market information. These dynamic modes of presenting data are made possible using a small application called Microsoft Silverlight.
Silverlight is a new Web technology that integrates multimedia, graphics, animations, and interactivity into a single, dynamic presentation. Silverlight was created to run in all popular Internet browsers, including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Opera. *Real-time LMI analysis in Version 10.05 requires Level-3 Spidering.
Users need only to download a small file — accessible on any page with maps or graphs — in order to view Silverlight functionality.
In earlier versions of Virtual OneStop/Virtual LMI, users were limited to retrieving data in a static, tabular format. Now, labor market information comes alive. Users are engaged with vivid graphs that provide an interactive representation of data. Graphs can be displayed for both historical and current data.
Mapped data provides an even more comprehensive user experience. Maps can be filtered to show additional layers of data, such as populated areas, cities, interstates, and workforce office locations. For example, the map on the right displays the distribution of job openings in Florida for computer programmers by county. Additionally, layers have been added to the map to show workforce office locations and major interstates.
These new maps and graphs are available in several areas of Virtual OneStop and Virtual LMI: Area and Occupation Profiles; various LMI sessions using both current and historic data, such as wage rates or jobs by area; and on job orders through the use of in-context links to labor market data.